


to fabricate

by zettaikiibo (mayuaka)



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, M/M, its another one of Those fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-10 21:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12920280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayuaka/pseuds/zettaikiibo
Summary: DRV3 SPOILERSA lie. He was a liar, after all.





	to fabricate

He's not sure when he first fell in love.

Was it when Saihara first walked into the classroom he was in with Kiibo? That seemed ages ago, a whole world away from today's reality. Back then, he hadn't predicted it would come to this. No, maybe he'd considered it, but not to this extent.

The Ultimate Detective, huh? He'd wanted Saihara to investigate him (in more ways than one), pick apart his pieces, tell apart his truths and his lies. Because the look of shock and confusion on the detective's face fueled him, because Saihara's determination and unwavering belief in others made him briefly reconsider his own decisions. He’d wanted Saihara to look past his constant facade and figure out what he really was. But he was also much, much too paranoid to ever let that happen.

The metal of the press is cold and uncomfortable beneath him.

('For everyone's sake,' he’d said back then. Because they all deserve to live no matter what he feels.)

 

* * *

 

When Saihara approaches him one day, excitement courses through his veins. The other boy holds infinite possibilities. He rattles off the details of his organization and throws in lies here and there, just to make it interesting. The detective leaves exhausted and confused, and Kokichi has never felt so happy and giddy in his life (of what he can remember, anyways).

The plan is very simple: a few games that don't really have any structure at all, and then the final conclusion to truly test Saihara's feelings. He thinks of it all in his head ("I stole your heart already, so I don't need to take your life anymore!") and he grins to no one in particular. It's easy, way too easy, to mess up on purpose and get Saihara all worried and concerned about him—he receives a weird, almost endearing look when he starts laughing like getting his hand bandaged by the other is the best thing that's ever happened to him, and in a way it is.

(He can't open up to Saihara, though. There's a chance, a very very small chance, that he could, in fact, be the mastermind. No real clues or reactions implicate him or rule him out, though the truth is that he’s just scared. Scared of being vulnerable. Nights thinking and rethinking do nothing. He stares at his whiteboard for hours and imagines a hundred different situations that could happen in this game. He thinks of Saihara the most.)

Laying in bed, he stares up at his bandaged fingers and smiles.

 

* * *

 

He lies constantly on a daily basis, but the worst ones he tells himself.

He likes the killing game.

He enjoys seeing them suffer.

He thinks it's _fun._

How could he stay sane otherwise?

(Maybe he already isn't.)

 

* * *

 

When he slips through the floorboard, his first thought is that he's dying. He's reached the end. He lays there for a moment, blood seeping from his head.

No, he has to get up. This is a valuable clue, right? He needs to get to the class trial... needs to help them...

His vision blacks out for a moment as he stumbles into the hallway, and he falls flat on his stomach, face hitting the floor. Pain reverberates through his body, causing him to groan softly.

Suddenly, he hears footsteps approaching, and an idea comes to him. He stays absolutely still until he hears a horrified gasp—"It's a lie!" he shouts, grinning, and makes out a blurry Saihara in his vision. Of course it had to be him that discovered Kokichi like this. Could fate be any crueler?

He laughs, getting up and pretending he's not on the edge of literally just passing out right there. Saihara interrogates him for exactly what happened, and he manages to relay the information somehow.

(Saihara's lack of concern for his wellbeing makes him hurt, just a bit. He knows he deserves it, but he can't help his feelings.)

 

* * *

 

He plays up enjoying the game more than ever, even though it hurts to smile and laugh and say such horrible things.

Though he hadn't really factored in physical hurt.

Momota's punch is jarring. It cuts through his act and kills it like a katana to the back of the neck. He goes silent, blank, a shadow across his face.

He loses his grip. He wants to melt through the floor. He needs to...compose himself.

 _It hurts because Momota's right,_ a voice in the back his mind tells him. He stomps on it until it dies. If he wants to win, he has to be stronger. If he wants to save them, he has to turn his back all of them first.

He's built up a wall—a sturdy, almost impermeable wall—between the others and himself.

Throughout all of these days, though, he can't ignore the sting from Saihara's words and expressions in particular.

 

* * *

 

Iruma is a threat. A very large, murderous threat, and he runs through every scenario in his head he can possibly think of but none are as certain as the one he acts upon.

He feels trapped and cornered and horrified and scared and anxious and bad and and and and

(He offers to be executed, too. It doesn't happen. And then he breaks, because the genuine concern isn't allowed to happen without a starkly contrasting denial.)

 

* * *

  

_(if we turn back a little, you can see the cracks)_

They are alone. The others have logged out.

The air feels charged with electricity in that moment, as if waiting for him to do something, anything, make use of this thing that will surely never happen again.

He twists his pleads for Saihara's attention into spiteful words of jealousy because he has to, has to disguise those feelings and it's a bad idea, he knows, oh, he just wants a reaction, anything, please, and the pain in his chest is so abrupt—"Saihara Shuuichi," his beloved says into the phone, and he's whisked away back to the terrifying reality where he'll find a dead body and a search for an unbelievable truth—but Kokichi shoves it all down because they're always watching. Aren't they? It's all so entertaining.

And so he says, to no one, but also the ones watching, in particular:

"Aw, I got rejected. But I won't give up that easily. (He'll see his plan through. He will.) When I find someone I like, I'd do anything to get them to notice me...even strangle them." (Oh, the irony.)

 

* * *

 

_(if you delve a bit deeper, you can find even more)_

After the trial? The tears are real. The cries are real. It's all real.

Real, unlike the world Iruma Miu was killed in, real, unlike the memories they've been given,

_r e a l_

unlike himself.

The laugh he makes sounds a thousand times worse to him than to the others. It must, because they aren't living and breathing a contradiction.  

He dodges Momota easily. He's learned his lesson.

But then, oh, but then he hears:

"Pathetic? Look at yourself, Ouma-kun."

"Momota-kun always has us by his side, see? But no one wants to be around you."

"You're alone, Ouma-kun, and you will always be."

His rebuttal is weak, like himself:

"Ha! You're talking about friends? Friends don't make this game more entert—"

This game. It's all a game. To be watched. To be entertaining. That's all they really are. That's all this is really for.

"..."

"The one who will win this game...is me."

He is alone. Has always been, will always be. He is pathetic. Reduced to the opposite of his values by whatever sick piece of shit organized all this. He is a hypocrite, a contradiction, a lie.

A lie. Because he's a liar, after all.

(Saihara lied. He lied in the trial. He had the fucking gall to lie. He fought fire with fire. It pisses Kokichi off to no end but its his own damn fault for pushing everyone away. The difference between their lies is that the detective is trusted. If Saihara was the blackened, would they believe him like that? Would anyone be willing to doubt him?)

 

* * *

 

The mastermind.

Why is it so easy for them to believe it’s him? ...because he’d done too much. It wouldn’t make sense for him to fake all of that. His plan is set in motion—no one will kill if there’s nothing left of the outside world, all their aggression should be focused on him. The next step—kidnapping Momota and holing up in the Exisal hanger is done. The one after that, he’s spent so much time thinking about it all, scribbling thoughts and speech patterns in a notebook, trying and failing not to think of dying, dying, dying…

Harukawa only speeds up the plan. Maybe he should thank her for forcing him to act. He wonders what she’s talking about as she’s yelling at him, but he silently thanks the universe for it because he’d already be dead if she’d picked a different poison.

He silently thanks Momota, too. If his stupid predictable values and care for Harukawa didn’t exist, he’d also be dead. He closes the hangar as soon as she runs off in horror and steals the antidote from Momota, revising the original plan as he goes. Camera, check. Script, check. Trying really hard not to think about what he’s about to do? Also done.

He thinks of Saihara. Somehow, the detective creeps his way back into Kokichi’s thoughts again. He thinks of how Saihara might figure out this case. He derails his own mystery in his mind through the other’s eyes—the pause in the video, the reason the video was taken, Kokichi’s clothes down the toilet, so many things. He’s placing his trust and faith in Momota, because if they have anything in common it’s their goal to end the killing game and their belief in Saihara.

In the end, he’s terrified. He’s just like anyone else scared of their own death. The only thing stronger is his resolve to end this, to show the people watching how meaningless the game is.

His last thoughts are of how the others will react when they discover a bloody mess the next morning, of how they’ll cry for Momota, of the shock when they see that it’s not Kokichi in that Exisal, of how not one of them will cry for _him,_ of how they’ll probably never know how he truly felt, of how it feels to be crushed under a metal press....

He thinks, idly, of Saihara again—imagines how it might feel to be kissed and embraced and _loved_ —and then, he thinks of nothing at all.

**Author's Note:**

> ahh theres a bunch of fics like this already but i wanted to do my own. can you believe this is the first thing i've completed and posted that isn't a mayuaka? and my first posted on ao3? my love for ouma kokichi transcends everything


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